Highest unclimbed mountain
It is illegal to climb Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan, so no-one has ever reached the top. It is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world.
Category: Places
For President: Convict No. 9653
Eugene Debs received more than 900,000 votes in the 1920 American presidential election – while in prison for sedition.
Rachmaninoff’s All by Myself
The Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff has a songwriter credit for the power ballad “All by Myself.”
Book of lonely vowels
Christian Bök’s 2001 anthology Eunoia contains five chapters that each use just one of the five vowels.
Human alarm clock
How did people wake up in the morning before alarm clocks? They paid to get knocked up.
Mary and the lamb
Sarah Josepha Hale published “Mary had a Little Lamb” in 1830. Forty-six years later, Mary Tyler claimed to be the original Mary.
Long mile
The Scandinavian mile is 10 kilometres long. It used to be longer still.
The doubters and the oracle bones
The Doubting Antiquity School were sceptics of ancient Chinese texts’ historical veracity… until the oracle bones were deciphered.
The lost bell of Shwedagon Pagoda
A Portuguese mercenary stole the largest working bell in history from Shwedagon Pagoda, and then lost it in the waters of the Yangon River.
The Clipper route
The fastest sailing route around the world – the Clipper route – is also the most dangerous.
The rail zeppelin
Germany’s 1930 Schienenzeppelin was a propeller-driven train that could pull forty passengers at speeds faster than 200 kilometres per hour.
Wittgenstein’s propellers
The famed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was also an early pioneer of jet-engine propellers.
Transylvanian school of witchcraft and wizardry
The 19th century Scottish author Emily Gerard collected local legends about a school of black magic high in the mountains of Transylvania.
Grace from slavery
John Newton was a press-ganged sailor, a slave, a slave-ship captain, an Anglican priest, an abolitionist, and the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”
Burmese names
Burmese people do not have surnames.
Chaos on Berners Street
Georgian London’s most famous prankster once summoned thousands of officials and tradespeople to the house of an unsuspecting victim.
The Generalist Academy 